SMALL WONDERS: New Sculpture and Photoworks by Athena Tacha

American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington, D.C.

September 6 - October 29, 2006

A reduced version of SMALL WONDERS was shown at the Kouros gallery, New York, February 1 - March 3, 2007.

(www.kourosgallery.com/home.htm)

Wave, 2004-05, lead sheet and white silicone, 11 x 20.5 x 18 in.

Volcano, 2003, copper sheet and black hot glue, 6 x 16.25 x 11.25 in.

Pink Canyon, 2003, extruded polystyrene, 8.25 x 24 x 9.75 in.

Range, 2005-06, extruded polystyrene and red sand, 4.75 x 13 x 18 in.

Athena Tacha's solo show at the American University Museum (Katzen Arts Center), Washington, contained over 30 new works - half sculptures and half photoworks - and was accompanied by a richly illustrated catalog designed by Jim Trulove. Anne Ellegood, Associate Curator of the Hirshhorn Museum, is author of the main essay, and landscape architecture critic Brenda Brown contributes a portion of her article on the artist from the October 2006 issue of Sculpture.

This show, particularly inspired by the American South West, was a celebration of nature's beauty and grandeur before it disappears through human intervention. Following her life-long interest in the forms of natural phenomena, Tacha faced a challenge familiar to 19th c. landscape painters but new to sculptors: how to capture the awesome scale of a natural site and the passage of time as a three-dimensional object.

Her small sculptures of archetypal canyons, volcanoes, caves, waves and waterfalls, made with an innovative mix of materials, were accompanied by Tacha's photographic works and silent films (DVD versions on plasma screens), exhibited for the first time in Small Wonders. Her serial photographs contradict their grids and the inherent rectangularity of the medium with an unexpected fluidity that characterizes all of Tacha's art.

Strata - Arizona, 2002/05, Digichrome prints, 27.75 x 42 in.

Snowcracks - New Zealand, 2005, Digichrome prints, 27.75 x 42 in.

Bark - Senegal, 2006, Digichrome prints, 42 x 37.5 in.

Some new photoworks:

Cecrops - Dominica, 2007, Digichrome print, 30 x 40 in.

Earcrop - 2006, Digichrome print, 24 x 36 in.

Watersteps - Dominica, 2007, Digichrome print, 30 x 54 in.

Crossing, Sardinia, 2007

Vulnerability: New Fashions by Athena Tacha

The following pieces were exhibited along with other works by Athena Tacha at the Franklin Furnace Gallery, New York City, from April 8 - May 7, 1994.

Brain Cancer Headdress for Maro (1992)
Baby oyster shells, polyurethane foam, grey clay and hot glue on expanded aluminum

700 Aegean Dives: Double-sided Shield for Ellen (1992)
Greek abalones, broken glass and silicone on aluminum screen

Shield (back) ............ Shield (front, detail)

Artist's Statement

"In 1992, my two best friends died from cancer (one of them unexpectedly) and I confronted, for the first time so intensely and directly, suffering and death. These works were generated in my effort to survive the loss and pain, and to understand death. As the series developed, I did become reconciled with death, and the pain moved from the personal to the social level, while the vulnerability that I had experienced in the human body extended to encompass the entire life-system on Earth. From the start I used natural materials that I had collected over many years (occasionally combined with recycled human-made materials). But it was perhaps the physical debilitation of my dying friends that lead me to wearable sculpture: armors that cannot protect, masks that reveal more than they conceal, shields that are too floppy or scratchy to defend, powerless, like the shells of the dead mollusks that are reversed to show their delicate interior. Generally, these works are riddled with contradictions, not the least of which is their ambivalent relationship to fashion design. Akin to it in their beauty, they nonetheless critique, if implicitly, the frivolity of fashion. Private memorials to tragic individual deaths, they move into the realm of the public through their references to social ills, to ecological threats and to corporate exploitation, specifically the exploitation of the female body and psyche by the industry of fashion." A.T.

Feather Armor for Ellen (1992)
Feathers on expanded aluminum, and brass chain

Armor for AIDS (to Aggie) -- 1992 .......... Details
Oyster shells and silicone on hardware cloth, and steel chain

Rape Armor for an Adolescent Girl (1992)
Greek limpets on expanded aluminum, and steel chain

Breast Cancer Patch for Chloe (1992)
White baby clams on expanded aluminum, and steel chain

230 Tantalon Bends: Rape Armor (1992)
Scottish limpets on expanded aluminum, and steel chain

Armor for a Battered Woman (1994)
Pink and copper-color thread, and bronze spills on plastic grid; red pumice and black thread on expanded aluminum

Homeless Fur Cape (1993-94), fish nets on chicken wire

New York Show, Oct. 12 - Nov. 21, 2001, Foundation for Hellenic Culture (7 W 57th St.): New Sculptures and Drawings

Feather Shield for Thalia , 2001, wine corks, miscellaneous feathers, hot glue; diam. 44 in.

Singularity #2, 2000-01, graphite on black paper, 22 x 30 in.

Shields and Universes: Artist's Statement

Athena's Shield, 1999-2000, N. Carolina oysters and hot glue; diam. 37 in.

Thymari Dives, 2000, Greek limpets and hot glue, diam. 25 in.

Singularity #3, 2001, silver ink on black paper, 22 x 30 in.

Decoherences , 2001, silver ink and silver powder on black paper, one of eight sheets, each 20 x 30 in. Detail

Athena Tacha had an one-artist show, Shields and Universes, at the MARSHA MATEYKA Gallery, Washington, DC, November 5 - December 16, 2004. It included some pieces from her New York show, together with new work in the same series (www.artline.com/galleries/mateyka/index.html).

17-Year Shield, 2004, Gigacicada exoskeletons and tinseled hot glue on expanded aluminum, diam. 32 in. (detail).

Public Art Commissions by Athena Tacha (Selected)

NEWEST EXECUTED COMMISSIONS:

Riding With Sarah And Wayne (2004-6), a mile-long artwork (in collaboration with Parsons Brinckerhoff) commissioned by NJ TRANSIT for the new Light Rail in Newark, NJ (with advice from the NJ State Council on the Arts). Between the rails of the five station platforms, Tacha has designed a granite pavement inspired by the scores of melodies sung or written by Newark jazz stars Sarah Vaughan and Wayne Shorter. The lyrics of the songs are sandblasted in granite along the platforms of Center and Broad Street stations.

Center Street Station, in honor of Sarah Vaughan's "Body and Soul", the song that launched her career in 1943.

Broad Street Station, in honor of Sarah Vaughan's "Send in the Clowns", one of her favorite songs, written by Stephen Sondheim in 1973.

Atlantic Street Station, in homage to Wayne Shorter's "Night Dreamer", composed in 1964.

Washington Square Station, in homage to Wayne Shorter's "Footprints", composed in 1967.

Drawings for Body and Soul.......Send in the Clowns.......Footprints

Hearts Beat (one phase of RGB animation), sky bridge ceiling, 300 x 15 ft., Strathmore Music Center, at Grosvenor Metro station, N. Bethesda, MD (2000-04). The LED tubes on each side of the bridge are programmed to pulsate at different rhythms, one side based on a female heart beat (70 pulses/min.), the other side on a male heart beat (60/min.).

Another phase of RGB animation

A third phase

STOP and GO, an art plaza for the new Washington, DC, metrorail's Morgan Boulevard station (that received the AIA 2005 distinction award), Prince George County, MD (2001-04). Dedicated to Garrett Augustus Morgan, the inventor of the first crossing traffic sign. Aerial view of plaza . Concrete, 5-color tiles, planters, red and green animated LED signs on five poles.

Pavement close-up

Stop and Go LED signs

Streams, Oberlin, Ohio (1975-76). Front view
Sandstone, pumice rocks and lake pebbles, 10 x 30 x 20 ft.

Ripples Federal Office Building, Norfolk, VA (1978-79). White concrete, 3 x 30 x 80 ft.
Four views at ground level

Twist, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (1980-81). Sandstone, 8 x 14 x 18 ft.

Curving Arcades (Homage to Bernini), University of Arizona, Tucson (1980-81)
Painted corten steel, ca. 16 x 50 x 74 ft. (National Endowment for the Arts). Four details

Blair Fountain, Arkansas River, Tulsa, OK (1981-82). Close-up
Concrete, rocks and water, ca. 30 x 60 x 80 ft.

Ice Walls, Museum of History and Art, Anchorage, AK (1983-84). Front view
Glass blocks and water, 4 x 26 x 20 ft.

Marianthe, University of S. Florida, Fort Myers (1985-86)
Open brickwork, cedar benches, planter and light, ca. 9 x 45 x 55 ft.

Marianthe was Destroyed

Double Star Antares, Hyde Park, Cincinnati, OH (1986-88).
Open brickwork, wood benches, ca. 10 x 56 x 64 ft.

Cincinnati also destroyed its Double Star!

Merging, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (1985-86). Detail of waterfalls
Red and grey granite, and water, ca. 8 x 71 x 83 ft. (Mildred Andrews Fund). Dog in waterfalls

Green Acres, aerial view, Department of Environmental Protection, Trenton, NJ (1985-87), commissioned by the NJ State Council on the Arts.
Closer-up aerial view. Detail .............. Ground-level view
Buff brick, green slate, photo-sandblasted green granite, rocks and plants. Pavement details

Connections 2-acre park, Franklin Town, Philadelphia (1981-92). View from Museum Towers
Ground-level view with downtown. Brown stone planters, rock clusters, trees, ground-covers. Close-ups (photos by Virginia Maksymovitch)

Transit, Department of Transportation, Hartford, CT (1991-93)
Pink concrete, black granite and sandblasted photos, 18 x 30 x 55 ft.

Eco-Rhythms, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul (1994-96)
In collaboration with Franklin H. Barnwell and other science faculty
Images and texts sanblasted on 280 slabs of black granite, lower lobby and corridors, ca. 9 x 256 x 112 ft.

Victory Plaza, American Airlines Center (new sports arena), Dallas (2000-2001)
Concrete and granite pavement with jet fountains, ca. 20 x 115 x 325 ft. (night view)

Victory Plaza, Dallas

For other Ohio public sculptures by A. Tacha seeThe Sculpture Center of Cleveland

Public art commissions by Athena Tacha IN PROGRESS

For Wisconsin Place, a new 5-acre development at Friendship Heights metro station, Washington, DC/ Chevy Chase, MD (2000-08), Tacha (in collaboration with Arrowstreet Inc. and Carol R. Johnson Associates of Boston) designed the South Court pavement and planters, radiating from a central granite waterfall crowned with an LED obelisk (in front of the new Bloomingdale's). Closer view of South Court .
Model of the LED obelisk and waterfall. View of S. Court under construction.
North of the South Court, the "light avenue" will continue with an animated LED RGB-strip sculpture along the ceiling of the shopping arcade.
At Willard Avenue, the 35-foot-high W-Light Tower will mark the north entrance to the mall, in front of a new Whole Foods store.

For the plaza of the Mohammad Ali Center in Louisville, KY (2002-07), in collaboration with EDAW of Alexandria, VA, Tacha designed on the upper level of the plaza a glass waterfall, and on the main level a sculptural amphitheater, Dancing Steps, with a water runnel crossing it, and Star Fountain. Views of the amphitheater under construction. And in the opposite direction .

Tacha's third public commission in progress, for the addition to the University of Wisconsin School of Business, is a large waterfall in its lobby, Waterlinks II, made of dark and light granite (in collaboration with the architects of the building, Zimmerman Architectural Studios). First model of Waterlinks II. View of the work in site from the side (computer model).

Proposed Memorials to Massacres of Civilian Populations

"...These are memorials that do not celebrate or glorify any causes or individuals. They are intended to preserve in human memory some of the most destructive cataclysms that happened during my life-time..."Athena Tacha, 1984

Artist's Statement

Jewish Holocaust Memorial (1983), concrete, volcanic red rocks and gravel, sandblasted photographs and inscriptions, ca. 40 x 200 x 200 ft. Close-up

Hiroshima-Nagasaki Memorial (1983), white concrete, black volcanic gravel and rocks, sandblasted photographs and inscriptions, ca. 35 x 200 x 250 ft.

India-Pakistan Memorial (1983), red granite, evergreen ground-covers, sandblasted photographs and inscriptions on column, ca. 60 x 120 x 160 ft.

Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia Memorial (1983-84), white concrete, sandblasted photographs and inscriptions on white marble, ca. 45 x 100 x 200 ft. Entering

Central America Memorial (1983-84), white concrete (or limestone), colored tiles, sandblasted inscriptions, ca. 16 x 150 x 200 ft. Different view

Proposed memorial to WTC 9/11 victims

Tacha's competition panel, ABSENCE AS PRESENCE

In the summer of 2003, Athena Tacha participated in the international anonymous competition for the memorial to the victims of the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Towers in New York City. She proposed to enclose the two towers' footprints with a glass waterfall wall, around which would be sandblasted life-size photos of the nearly 3000 victims, forming huge rings of faces.
Close-up of panel.
Close-up of glass waterfall wall.

ABSENCE AS PRESENCE statement

Window wall with explosion image (see Panel and Statement).

Temporary Installations by Athena Tacha - latest at Bellagio, 2007

The Meat Industry, FAVA Gallery, Oberlin, OH (1992)
"Reuse/Refuse" exhibition, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawaii (1994)
Photo-negatives, astroturf, chicken feet, pig ears, cattle horns and lambs' wool

Artist's Statement

Corral Animal Science Building, University of Nebraska, Lincoln (1987-90) Sandblasted photographs on black slate, ca. 4 x 64 x 80 ft.

The Meat Industry, another view; Close-ups of walls

The Order of Chaos, crumpled architectural velum; site-specific installation by Athena Tacha's for her retrospective exhibition at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 1989, made in response to the hard-edge geometric spaces of Richard Meier's building ................ Section penetrating three floors through skylight

Memory Temple, (2000), architectural paper, silver ink inscriptions, blue lights, ca. 13 1/2 x 20 x 38 ft. Installation for the exhibition "Citizens of the World", Eikastiko Kentro Synchronis Technis, Larissa, Greece. Over 100 hand-written inscriptions (executed by Efi Malaki and her students) narrated a history of Larissa backwards in time and space, from the present (at the front left column/scroll) to the remotest past of Earth and the cosmos, spiralling inward to the center of the "temple". View diagonally from center.

Sealed Memories (to E.H.J.), one-artist show/installation at the University of Florida Art Gallery, Gainesville, FL, May 15 - August 10, 1998 -- view of outer chamber upon entering, with blue spots and light-frieze reflected from the openings of the intermediate chamber

Sealed Memories, center room, partial view showing hanging postcards and their reflections on the floor's mylar "pathways"

Sealed Memories (det.), view of hanging postcards with their shadows and reflections on the walls

Artist's Statement

During her residency at the Bellagio Study Center (Italy) in April 2007, Tacha created an installation with over 1,000 feathers, When All the Birds Are Gone, (Copyright Athena Tacha 2007).

It was made impromptu, in five days of work, documented at each stage. First stage and Fifth stage.

Detail with random names of birds from all over the world.

Sunbursts (in progress)

Sunbursts, 2001-... (web version)

A proposed multidisciplinary installation with the collaboration of Jean-Francois Hochedez, solar physicist (Brussels), Bogdan Nicula, electronic engineer (Brussels), and Joshua Fried, composer (New York).

Sunbursts, 2001-2005 (PowerPoint)

Music fragment 1

Music fragment 2

Chaos (1998 - in progress)

Fluid ........... Solid

Conceptual and Net Art by Athena Tacha

The latest in Athena Tacha's series of 21 "pocket books" started in 1972 -- tiny intimate texts printed in pastel color papers and folded inside clear plastic pockets (at Printed Matter, New York, www.printedmatter.org):

My Childhood Garden (Visual Memory Excavation #1), 1997/2001

My Childhood Home (Visual Memory Excavation #2), 1997/2001

My Youthful Photo-Album (Visual Memory Excavation #3), 1998/2001

Turning Sixty-Five (The Process of Aging III), 2001

Different Notions of Thriftiness, 1978/2005

Different Notions of Time, 1979/2005

Different Realities, 1982/2005

Life's Layering, 2005

Digital art:

A Leaf from My Life (1995)

Mammograms Are Not Enough (1995)

Anti-War Art by Athena Tacha

The Dead of Iraq (2008) Map and microbeads, 32 x 32 in. 1 drop = 1 dead (ca. 1 million)

Baghdad & Abu Dhabi (title page) Baghdad & Abu Dhabi (2008) (PowerPoint)

The Military-Industrial Boa (1971) Silkscreen poster

Death Is Life?(1997)

The Human Body: An Invisible Ecosystem (1996)

A new CD-ROM by Athena Tacha, rendered in Macromedia by Kym Serrano
Best seen on Power Macintosh (MacOS 8)

CD Cover Image

You can visit specific sites and see over 200 images and videos of bacteria, viruses, fungi, yeasts, protozoa and mites that colonize the healthy human body. A dictionary of all the micro-organisms offers succinct information on each. The artist describes the work as follows:

"The Human Body: an Invisible Ecosystem is a digital "conceptual art" work that reveals the incredible universe of micro-organisms living as permanent residents on and inside our body, interdependent with each other and with us.

"Most areas of the normal human body host, on a regular basis, hundreds of species of bacteria, viruses, fungi and yeasts that are either harmless or become pathogenic only under specific conditions. In this art project, the body is visualized as parallel to the planet Earth -- an environment with varied climate zones, comparable to cool dark woods (the scalp), sparsely inhabited deserts (the forearm), heavily populated tropical forests (the underarm), hot moist jungles (the nose and mouth), and oceans teaming with life (the intestinal and urinal tracts).

"The new medium of interactive CD-ROM (as multi-directional and open-ended as the Internet, even though within a closed system) turned out to be the perfect vehicle for what I intended: to let people experience through surprise, disgust, wonder, delight and humor this invisible micro-universe that teams with life and interacts with us -- because we depend on these tiny creatures almost as much as they depend on us. The number of bacteria normally living on and inside each of us exceeds by far the number of our own body's cells!

"The CD-ROM offers multiple layers for images and textual information that can accommodate the body's different areas (skin, eyes, mouth and nose, gastrointestinal tract, genital areas, urinal and fecal tracts), allowing interpenetration from one to the other at many levels, just as the micro-organisms communicate from area to area. It also allows surprises and unpredictable juxtapositions, individual connections and discoveries, and an interactivity and fluidity that are paralleled by the actual conditions in the body."

Eye with some micro-inhabitants
Mouth ................ Mouth with some micro-inhabitants
Vagina/Penis with micro-inhabitants

Order from:
Athena Tacha, 3721 Huntington St., N.W., Washington, DC 20015-1817
e-mail: atacha@umd.edu

Earliest Works of Athena Tacha

Lake Erie (1964), glass-pebble mobile, ca. 2.5 x 2.5 x 1 ft., with the artist

Flower Garden (1964), wood, encaustic, stainless steel, ca. 18 x 18 x 12 in., Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH

Ocean Box (1964), clear and colored glass, and wood, 10 x 23 x 17 in., former Coll. Katherine White Merkel Reswick

Clear Galaxy (1965), clear Plexiglas and wood, 14 x 14 x 14 in., former Coll. Robert Light

Double Echo (1966), clear and colored Plexiglas, wood, UV lights and motors, 18 x 32 x 12 in., former Coll. Ellen H. Johnson

Mondrian Pool (1966-68), clear Plexiglas and fluorescent dyes, 8 x 8 x 8 in., Coll. Molly Anderson, Oberlin, OH

Orange Fall, II (1967-68), clear Plexiglas, fluorescent orange and pink mylar, wood, and UV lights, former Coll. Thalia Gouma Peterson

Anti-Gravity (1967), clear and colored Plexiglas and Epsom salts solution, 12 in. diam.

Floating (1968), clear Plexiglas, castor oil and silicone fluid, 8 x 8 in. diam., Coll. Parks and Christie Campbell, Fort Worth, TX

Dripping (1969), clear Plexiglas and silicone fluid, 12 x 12 in. diam., former Coll. Agnes Gund

Athena Tacha Bio & Collections

Selected Bibliography

Statement: Rhythm As Form, published in Landscape Architecture, May 1978, pp. 196-205

Dancing in the Landscape: A recent book on Athena Tacha's public sculpture

Website revised February 2008.